IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/edures/6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Broadening the Context of Affirmative Action: The Role of Athletics and Legacy in College Admission Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Walling L. Walling

    (Princeton University)

  • Espenshade J. Espenshade

    (Princeton University)

  • Chang Y. Chung

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

This study proposes a wider view of affirmative action than the one generally given in the literature on college admission. While discussions of affirmative action tend to focus solely on race, there are other characteristics of college applicants that could also fall under the rubric of affirmative action because of the "bonus" they confer. Our study examines the ways in which two important factors in college admission decisions, athletics and legacy, give an advantage to particular students. It is widely accepted that admission officers give preference to recruited athletes and to those who are members of a family line at a particular institution. This paper quantifies the extent of this advantage. It also asks which applicants are benefiting most from these preferences. Logistic regression analyses of admission decisions at three selective universities show that the advantages given by athletic talent and legacy status are differentially available among otherwise similarly qualified students.

Suggested Citation

  • Walling L. Walling & Espenshade J. Espenshade & Chang Y. Chung, 2003. "Broadening the Context of Affirmative Action: The Role of Athletics and Legacy in College Admission Decisions," Working Papers 6, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Education Research Section..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:edures:6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01js956f85c/1/6.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:edures:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.